Temple of the Jade Serpent is a good introductory dungeon to try for a Gold challenge mode. It’s not a very long instance, and while there are a few places you really shouldn’t screw up, there are also remarkable areas where you can save time if you’re savvy. There’s a definite advantage in this dungeon for melee and ranged that can cast on the move.

The first pull: from start to Wise Mar’i

All trash up to the first boss should be pulled; if you have a sturdy tank or one capable at kiting, you should pull the boss while keeping DPS on the adds. Use heavy damage reduction cooldowns to survive until the first three adds are down, including the one spawned by the boss. Options are gathering together and using Spirit Link Totem, or having them tanked by an Army of the Dead. Once the boss is dead, rush to the library.

The library

Pull and kill the first group of adds, two Pandaren spirits and a Sha. Kill them and use an invisibility potion to rush over the bridge and stand near the corner. Pull the packs on the bridge and any of the other packs as your are capable of handling. Have someone start the fight by killing the sha-touched book on the ground floor, while the rest kills of the mobs. There’s plenty of time spent in a small section of RP to kill them, and even if you have an add left it’s not a real bother.

When killing the two minibosses here, allow the stack to go up to 8. This will kill them considerably quicker, especially with DoTs ticking. Stop immediately at 8 however, or you risk them getting ultimate power and becoming immune.

Rumble at the courtyard

Rush over to the courtyard, and use serial AoE stuns and fears as much as you can to keep the small adds controlled. When the last add is dying is a good time to use Hymn of Hope and help the healer get some mana. Fireblossom will spawn, but if the healer needs to drink you can probably help keep up the tank with a PW:Shield plus Prayer of Mending long enough. Vampiric Touch is also very good here, as the boss can have some mean damage spikes.

When the boss is between 7% and 10%, if you have a Hunter in the party, have him or her get ready at the door. Other classes also work, but will require a battle rez. When the boss goes down, this person will aggro the three Sha through the door, and rush to the far left corner. The rest of the party gathers in the right corner. Hunters feign death now, the rest has to die quickly. The moment the Sha are reset, pull the Sha of Doubt and they will be gone as well.

This fight goes much as usual. AoE down the shadow copies when they spawn, and burn him down with whatever cooldowns you have after killing the first spawn of adds.

Enjoy your gold medal!

Shadowpriests specifically

Because of the many adds and high mobility, you might want to consider From Darkness Comes Light and the glyph of Mind Spike to put out more damage on the move.

As most mobs will be clumped up or running after the tank in front of you, Shadow Jojo (Divine Star) seems the most solid option.

Before the challenge mode starts, use PW:Shield and Prayer of Mending on the tank to help out in the first pull, unless your healer is Disc.

Movement is key here – Body and Soul is a solid choice for movement if you have any healer other than Disc, where I’d suggest Feathers.

Divine Insight or Twist of Fate is a tossup; you will have plenty mobs at <20%, but also multidotting running all over.

Everyone can see that your Guild Level helps in conquering the current content – additional XP for your alts, reputation bonuses for Cataclysm reps and guild cauldrons/lobster feasts. But just because it’s a useful gains for your raiding/battleground experience doesn’t mind it cannot help you on your off-time, and get some of the older content done which you might have skipped.

It’s not the first time I speak of Classic content, having made posts before on the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, for instance. I also fully intent to get a few guides going in this style if people find them useful enough. I’ve also shared my thoughts on leveling a new character in the revamped Old World, and a wrap-up of things that were available up to Cataclysm but are now gone. Epic class quests, oh how I miss thee.

Water under the bridge, I say – time to look at how Guild Level (GL) and its perks can help in completing some old-time grinds quicker. First off that old-time favorite: The Darkmoon Faire.

Darkmoon Faire

If you are going for the Insane title, or just would like to get Exalted with these guys because you always loved the circus, your GL can help you in many ways. First off, the perk Mister Popularity will increase all reputation gained by 5%/10%. One of the easiest ways to grind rep with them is by using Dense Grinding Stones and Thorium Widgets. This is because of the Bountiful Bags perk gained at GL 23. If you have a miner, have it run circles in Un’goro Crater or Silithus for Thorium Veins. Because of the perk, you will farm more goods than normal.

Have an engineer (or an engineering alt) fabricate the Thorium Widgets, and a blacksmith make Dense Grinding Stones. Turn both in at Rynlyn and Kerri Hicks, respectively. Each turn-in requires 8 Dense Grinding Stones or 6 Thorium Widgets.

You cannot gain any reputation from turn-ins once you hit 2250 into Friendly. This is 5250 rep, or 21 turnins (20 with 5% rep bonus, 19 with 10% rep bonus). After this, you can turn in more items for Prize Tickets, but won’t gain more rep for it, and it now requires 40 of each item per turn-in. This means you will need to find another way – in this case, Darkmoon Cards. 36,750 rep is required to progress to Exalted.

Darkmoon Cards -> Decks

A deck of cards provides a quest to turn it in. The lower-level decks (pre-level 60, which summon a Darkmoon Faire representative to you) give 25 rep per turn-in. Decks of a higher level award 350 rep each (375 with 10% experience bonus).

This means that to get to Exalted from 2250 into Friendly, you will need 36,750/25 (=1470) or 36,750/350 (=105) decks of one of these types to make it, which is quite expensive. Reduce these numbers by 5% or 10% depending on GL.

Fortunately, if you are a Scribe, there’s a shortcut for all of this. You see, when you mill herbs and make inks to make the lucrative glyphs, you will be stuck with quite some inks that have no use besides making out-dated items or scrolls. They can also, however, be used to fabricate the many sets of Darkmoon Cards.

My advice would be to make the Greater Darkmoon Cards made using TBC herbs and Primal Life, as the mats for these are quick to farm. While the Cataclysm ones will yield trinkets with actual sale value, getting 10 Inferno Ink takes quite a lot more time and can also be used to make other profitable items. In addition, you will find more people competing on Cata herb nodes than TBC ones.

If you hadn’t leveled a Scribe yet (and you should have, really, since it’s good money) this might be a good reason to do it. One advice I give for leveling characters is to take Herbalism/Mining as professions to gain more XP. The secondary benefit of this is that each alt you level will give a metric bork-ton of herbs to grind away in your glyph machine. Keep sending the Darkmoon Cards which are the side-product to a bank alt (since the cards stack but the decks do not) until you have enough of them and the Darkmoon Faire is near.

The drop-off

Make sure to have an Argent Squire near or a friend with a portable mailbox. Depending on your faction, the nearest mailbox might be very far away, and you will need many inventory spaces. Keep them stacked as cards, that way you can fill the most of your inventory. Assemble the decks in groups (since decks of the same kind are mutually excusive) and turn them in. Mail the proceeds away to your bank alt (some of these fetch good money, and else the disenchanting mats will).

Edit: Some people might actually have a level 11+ banking guild, or a guild supporting this endeavour specifically. In this case, keeping a bank tab open just for turn-in items is very handy. At the Darkmoon Faire, simply whip out the Guild Chest obtained from the Mobile Banking Perk, and you will be able to clear the bank in minutes (in a good way). Just be sure the permissions on that tab are set to allow you to withdraw everything…

Estimated Time: I believe that if you spend about an hour a day farming herbs in Outland, you’d be able to complete this in about a month. Not just because of the sheer amount of required herbs, but also because the Darkmoon Faire only comes about once a month.

Next on Twisted Faith

I intend to do a series of posts revolving around Guild Level and Classic Content. Next time we’ll see Ahn’Qiraj revisited, mechano-hogs and engineers braving ancient dungeons for their secrets.

Hello again! I’ve been working a bit on an example guide as I promised in a previous post here. Like I stated there, I am looking into making a couple of guides that will allow us to spend some quality time getting things done that we’d normally leave by the wayside. Ancient questlines, achievements, lost pets and evil Dwarves are lurking!

This is the first in the line, something I am actually working on as we speak – the Scepter of the Shifting Sands questline. Once used to open up the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj by a simultaneous effort of multiple guilds and hundreds of contributors, it has now been largely forgotten. But you can still claim the Scepter in the last days before the Cataclysm, before it might get removed.

Follow the link to open up the guide as a PDF file. It’s complete including two cheat sheets; one with a roster of all quests and one with all required materials in the quest lines. Even though I made the list as clear and lean as I could, I still found the room to add a bit of eye-candy as well.

Tell me what you think, and I will incorporate the feedback into the next guide I am making; unless someone feeds me a better idea, I am thinking of doing Cass’ request for a Shadowpriest Dungeon Solo guide next.

In other news

After weeks of working and tweaking Unity managed to complete Glory of the Icecrown Raider on 25man difficulty. We also managed to snag more Bloodbathed Frostbrood Vanquishers from the 10man as well, which leads me to have two shadowy bone dragons to pick from.

Stirrings at the Beta

Dedicating a full post on what’s going on in the Beta for Cataclysm seems a bit pointless, as more changes than I could report. Just some highlights then:

Mind Spike now stacks a crit buff for Mind Blast to 100%, instead of reducing cast time

Shadow Word: Death now has a 10 second cooldown (down from 12) and deals 10% extra damage

In the Guild department, some of the rewards have been released such as the awesome Dark Phoenix mount and pet, Heirloom head items, Heirloom cloaks and Guild banners/heralds. Heralds? Yes.

Like the little Argent Tournament Tyke, it seems you can have your own flagbearer announcing the awesomeness that is your guild by having him put up the guild’s banner. While not equally exciting to everyone, there is at least one good tactical use for it as well, and historically correct: using it as a collapse point during PvP encounters or raids. “Collapse on Banner” might become a new slogan in raiding…

After reading Yappo’s guide on “failsafe tank gearing” in this thread on Maintankadin, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a similar guide and list for freshly dinged Shadowpriest. Like with Yappo’s guide, it will be based on a couple of basic assumptions, and with the caveat that the gear is not presented in any particular order. Rather, it gives you an idea what you can achieve in only a few weeks if you put your mind to it.

Assumptions

You can generally generate 150 gold per day from dailies, heroics and vendor trash

Once per day you can run a random heroic for 2 Emblems of Frost

At four Heroics per day, you will gain an average of 22 Emblems of Triumphs

When I link a Horde- or Alliance version of gear, it applies equally well to the other Faction

Goals

The first goal will be to be at the Hit Cap; this is a total of 158 Hit rating in heroics, and 446 Hit rating for raids. It is assumed you will have Misery and Shadow Focus for a total of 6% Hit – a Draenei is not assumed since you can’t always have a Draenei in your group unless you are one. This brings the total amount of required Hit rating on gear to 0 in Heroics (where the highest level mob is level 82) and 289 in raids.

Second, you will want to have a balanced amount of Haste and Crit, and the largest amount of Spellpower you can achieve. Once in raid content, Haste will become the decisive factor in gear.

Craftables

These take zero time in Heroics, but will take a considerable amount of money or materials. However, you can pretty much be sure someone near you will be able to craft them, and they are a very good expenditure to make.

Merlin’s Robe (Chest): Plenty of Spellpower, Crit and Haste, combined with having three sockets make this robe a clear winner. Best enchant is +10 Stats.

Sash of Ancient Power (Belt): A belt with 43 Hit rating and 2 sockets is a godsend, especially since it offers Haste. Add a Belt Buckle with a Runed Cardinal Ruby.

Spellslinger’s Slippers (Feet): Even though they have Spirit, there’s a lot of Haste on these items. Best enchant (until you are Hit capped) is Icewalker, after that it’s Tuskarr’s Vitality.

Leggings of Woven Death (Legs): While very expensive due to needing Primordial Saronites, these legs are tailor-made (pun intended) for Shadowpriests. They will last you until well into ICC (and Hardmodes) so it is not a waste to have them crafted. Best enhancement is Brilliant Spellthread.

Hat of Wintry Doom (Head): A humble blue-quality item that nevertheless offers you a Metagem socket and 44 Hit rating. It is not very expensive to craft, and will require Heroic gear to replace. Best enchant is the Arcanum of Burning Mysteries. Assuming you have a level 80 main Exalted with the Kirin Tor, you can have it mailed to you alt since it is Bind on Account.

With this basic gear alone, you will already be hit-capped for Heroics, and well on your way to being Hit capped in raids. If you are at risk of being called into a raid before having more chances to gear up, my suggestion would be to get the Ebonweave Gloves crafted, which will add another 51 Hit rating. You will still be a way off the Hit cap, but it’s the best effort you can undertake.

Your Metagem of choice will be the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond (+21 Crit rating and 3% increased Crit damage). You will need to socket 2 blue gems, and I would advise to put a Purified Shadowpearl in your Bracers and Chest from the list above.

Normally, you would socket +23 Spellpower in any socket unless you socket a Reckless gem in a yellow slot or the socket bonus is +9 Spellpower or more. However, if you do happen to be called into a raid early (sometimes guildies love to give the new guy a chance) consider socketing Spellpower/Hit instead. No need to get crazy on these gems, but try to get at least 5%-6% Hit from gear before entering even a friendly guild raid.

Dagger of Lunar Purity (Argent Tournament, 25 Champion’s Seals): A nice upgrade from the Spell Scalpel once you make the Hit Cap, it is also relatively quick to get if you do your dailies.

Signet of the Kirin Tor (Expensive!): If you absolutely need a ring now and cannot wait, spending a few thousand gold on this ring (and its upgraded versions) is always an option. It is not very economical though, and if you plan to do ICC-10 runs soon and regularly, it is best to pass this one up.

Normal Mode Dungeons

The idea of a “Failsafe” gearing guide is that you are not depending on random drops, the fickle economy of the Auction House, or anything else that could leave you hanging for a long time. One of the advantages is then to use Normal mode dungeons, and then especially Trial of the Champion, Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron and Halls of Reflection. Bringing a group of guildies in can make quick work of these dungeons even if you are not fully geared from them, and the drops here are reasonable substitutes until you have the emblems for the better pieces.

After these two/three weeks of gearing you are ready for raiding. Before you continue on, make sure that you have 10% Hit shown on your paperdoll. With 6% Hit from talents and 1% from a Draenei you will be Hit capped. If you have less than 10%, consider adding some Spellpower/Hit or even pure Hit gems, or enchant your weapon with the Accuracy enchant.

You will now also have the first option for spending your Frost emblems. Your primary choice here is based on your current gear. If you have really bad Hit on your gear, consider buying Maghia’s Misguided Quill and regemming/enchanting your Hit into Spellpower.

Otherwise, I would strongly recommend buying your Tier10 pieces, starting with the Shoulder and Head items. Run VoA once per week, and pray either the legs or gloves drop while saving up for the chest. Your gear choices from there will now move away from the “gearing up for raids” guide and into the domain of the raiders, so I refer you to the discussion on various way of combining raiding items for best effect on Shadowpriest.com.

Conclusion

I hope this guide will prove to be useful to someone, it is not entirely complete yet as I am bound to have forgotten one or two good items, and some items can also easily be obtained from the AH these days. I will add them soon.

One of the things that I found an interesting social dynamic in World of Warcraft is the fact that information is actually a rare good. In this case, more than anywhere else, the adage of “knowledge is power” is coming true in spades. Some people seem to be walking Wowhead libraries, able to spout details on even obscure quests when asked in Guild Chat, while others seem to have difficulty comprehending that Hit is not a good stat for healers. In the middle lies the gamut of people, who have difficulties with choosing between Haste or Crit, attempting to decipher the Defense score, or trying to grasp at rotations and procs.

A few basic properties of water that are akin to information:

The source of all water is the sea

Water evaporates, but also rains down again

Water rolls downhill to the lowest altitude

Water is the source of life, yet you can drown in it.

The source of all water is the sea

Like water starts its cycle in the sea, Blizzard is the main source of information on the game itself. Whether the game explains you things, the tooltips show you information, or things are clarified on the forum – all basic information is found inside the game or its peripherals.

Now, the cycle does not work unless this information is spread. The greatest weakness of the game is its complexity, and the unwillingness of Blizzard to divulge most basic information. Without external sources, who will let you know Spellpower plate is not good for Death Knights? How will you know what Defense skill you need to be uncrittable? How much Hit do you need to never miss?

Part of this problem is that Blizzard ran the policy that people needed to experiment, and left this information out of sight to make the game more challenging without having to alter its components (Chill of the Throne, for instance). Another part is that knowledge of these stats would make people chase after them, min/maxing to become the best they can be. This is, of course, Human nature.

Water evaporates, but also rains down again

It only takes one clever person to calculate the scores, do thousands of tests or get an answer slipped from an unobservant Blizzard representative to gather this information. Now, if one person would know it, nothing would change. But like water, information becomes publicly available. Theorycrafting sites run rampant to provide calculations and simulations, allowing people in the know to tailor their character to meet the minimum standards (say for Hit) and then crank up all other scores. Once you meet the basic demands, and know you need no more Hit, you can now ignore Hit as a gear choice component.

The rain falls when Blizzard realises that information of this type is released. Content now needs to be harder, conforming to people’s optimized gear and talent spec. Encounter dynamics become harder, but Bossmods tell people what’s happening and what to look out for. This again rains down as encounters become very busy, whirling chaos, with many tasks to keep many busy. Blizzard now assumes every raider uses a Bossmod, so designs encounters accordingly.

Bossmods are now practically mandatory – raiding without it is very hard, and coordination would become a logistical issue.

Water rolls downhill, to the lowest altitude

Hardcore raiders, skilled PvPers and achievement jockeys all need information badly. They need spreadsheets to calculate gear, strategies to follow during raids or in arenas, or information on that one missing Parrot for their “To all the squirrels I’ve Loved before” achievement (incidentally, that’s Un’goro Crater). Some people are real storehouses of information, on several classes and raids, and divulge this to their fellow raiders, arena mates and guildies.

Rolling downhill, information spreads according to the individual’s needs. If the information is not readily available, someone can come up with a link to a blog or forum that has the answer. But some people never get reached by the water.

Some people run the game without addons, finding them restrictive or difficult. Others do not read strategies, wanting to find things out on their own. And some simply never found a kind soul to tell them that being a Hunter in Spirit cloth is simply a laughable idea.

Playing the game is still fun, you can still make a lot of mileage out of it, but basic information on how to play the class, or even roughly what gear you need, is never given.

A final consideration is that water also gathers into lakes, symbolic for guides being sold on the internet telling people how to play, how to make gold, or how to succceed at PvP. Like the self-help guides available from bookstores, many capitalize on the lack of information people have, and the need they feel to better themselves. Many derive a real-world income driven by the angst and ambition of people without realizing that the knowledge can also be gained for free with a bit of work. However, it is generally not possible to get that information by just playing the game and not consulting external resources.

Water is the source of life, yet you can still drown in it

Blizzard has added quest objectives to the game, showing where to go to complete your quests, because without that information people where frustrated at times finding out where to go. Tooltips were clarified in order to show people the real improvements their talents gave to their abilities. Without this, the game became more frustration than a game, and that is why it was changed.

Some more basic info might improve the game. Perhaps class trainers would offer a dialogue option explaining what kind of gear to go after (Gruk the Mighty want plate armor that makes Gruk strong!) or perhaps a basic tanking or healing guide in a help function.

I am aware that Blizzard wants social interaction as well – experienced tanks teach you more about tanking, for instance – but some things you should be able to find out with less fuss. It is so frustrating for a poor new tank to be laughed at in an instance because he’s wearing DPS gear. Who ever told him that he needed tanking gear to tank? Not everyone’s lucky to find a good mentor.

And like with water, information can drown you.

Forums are full of discussions on the minutiae of a talent spec, or filled with pages of math that is too complicated for Joe Average to grasp. Cookie cutter builds are exalted and reviled depending on who you ask, and people have difficulty deciding what to go for – and might give up in the process.

Conclusion

The information flow in World of Warcraft mostly takes place outside of the game. Without the assistance of external help sources, like blogs, fora or addons, it becomes hard if not impossible to access or succeed at certain parts of the game. Beginning players often do not receive enough basic information to get them started, needing experienced mentors or guides to find their way.

In PvP and raids, those with access to correct and up-to-date information often succeed over their less-informed and savvy rivals. This also brings with it a continuous need to keep themselves informed, spending as much time mulling over stats and strats as actually playing the game.

My hope is that starting players come Cataclysm might receive more information at the start, so that their transition into the first few levels become a discovery, rather than a grudge match with impossible (or forced) choices. And finally, I hope that the changes in raids and PvP (some of which have been given sneak peeks of by Blizzard) will allow PvPers and raiders to get more enjoyment out of their game, instead of having to run the rat race.

On request I will dedicate a few posts on raiding as a Shadowpriest, starting out from a beginner’s point of view. Maybe you’re a Shade who just dinged 80, or a Holy who plays offtime melting faces – some things are the same for all of us. This post will be about preparations to make before the raids begins, and I will try to keep it relatively information-dense.

Basic raiding spec and Glyphs (beginners): Click here
4 points are left over; I like Improved Shadow Form and Improved Vampiric Embrace. If you have threat issues, go for Shadow Affinity. If you have issues with mana get Focused Mind.

The last major glyph could be Mind Sear (for trash), Dispersion (if you will soak Algalon AoE, and for general mana gains and survivability) or Shadow Word: Pain (for mana trickle).

Consumables and reagents

For your group buffs (Fortitude, Spirit and Shadow Protection) you will need Devout Candles, available from the reagent vendor. I usually carry 40 of these, enough to rebuff even if I am the only priest in a raid. If you need more, buy extras from Jeeves if someone puts it up for repairs, or get an Argent Squire his Pony Bridle and buy reagents from him when you need it.

Bring along some Flasks of the Frostwyrm – at least one per hour you expect to be raiding. I like to carry a full stack, in case raids take longer and to prevent me having to buy them at inflated prices at the AH during raiding hours. Buy them when they’re cheap and in bunches. If you are doing easy content you won’t wipe in often, you can make due with Spellpower Elixirs and Elixirs of Mighty Thoughts.

Knowing where you’re going

If you are going to face bosses you haven’t done before, do all the preparations you can. See some videos, read the strategy, and practice them when possible. For instance, you know you have to prevent getting frozen on the Hodir encounter, which can be practiced at the last boss of Nexus. Malygos flight battles can be practiced by a daily flying quest in Coldarra.

Good places for tactics are Wowwiki, Bosskillers, Project Marmot at Tankspot and the boss descriptions at WoWHead. They feature detailed descriptions, what to do when certain abilities go off, videos of a fight in action and also commentary from people who have done the content before. The first time you do a new boss will still be a bit confusing (I know it is for me) but this way you give yourself the best chance possible.

Practice, practice, practice

Being a Shadowpriest is all about managing your DoTs while following instructions and making sure to stay alive. How you handle your spells should become second nature to you, muscle memory. A good start for this is practicing on a Boss-level target dummy, by simply going through your spell selection, keeping your DoTs up. You will learn how to time the renewal of your DoTs, how many Mind Flays you can squeeze in, how much lag/delay you have and the like. It will help you by making sure that when you need to focus on tactics and survival, you can keep up your spells without a second thought.

User Interface

Make sure all information you need is close at hand, especially your DoTs’ timer. I would recommend Ellipsis (…), DoTimer, ClassTimer or ForteXorcist as addons, which give you a series of countdown bars for your DoTs, so you have a good view of when to refresh them.

A bossmod like DXE (Deus Ex Encounters), Bigwigs Bossmods or Deadly Bossmods is essential to provide you with clear encounter warnings.

While meter whoring is not encouraged, it is good to know what you are doing. Install a threat meter like Omen, to make sure you know when to hold back. Paired with a damage meter like Recount or Skada, which give detailed overviews of damage done (and what spells you used, missed spells, etc.) this will give you a lot of valuable information on your performance. Study it from time to time, and see if it can help you improve. Recount and Skada also have inbuilt threat meters, if you want to save memory. Simply keep the threat meter up, and only switch to the damage meters when you need info.

Macros

There are a couple of handy macros to prepare beforehand, which will help you a lot when you are called out for a specific duty.

Mouse-over Dispel

#Showtooltip
/cast [target=mouseover] Dispel Magic

This macro will allow you to dispel nasty stuff off you and raid members by hitting the macro while hovering your cursor over the unit frame, or the target toon itself. You can replace Dispel Magic with Abolish Disease for an easier life when fighting Yogg-Saron, for example. For the macro icon, choose the question mark to display the spell icon.

This macro will Shackle your target, and make it your focus. By clicking it again, it will re-cast Shackle on your focus target. If your target is dead, click it will remove the focus. You can also replace Shackle Undead with Mind Control to assist at Instructor Razuvious in Naxxramas, or the Warbringers at Thorim.

This macro will summon your Shadowfiend and will set it on your target, using Shadowcrawl to get there quickly and get a damage buff.

Bubble on- Bubble off

#showtooltip Dispersion
/cancelaura Dispersion
/cast Dispersion

Stolen from the secrets of Paladins, this macro will cast Dispersion, and allow you to get out by clicking the button a second time. This way, if you are using Dispersion to survive a single blow, like Algalon’s Big Bang or Festergut’s AoE, you can quickly resume DPS after the damage passed.

Conclusion

These basic bits of knowledge will help you prepare for your raids, and stay prepared. Next I will discuss raiding behavior, some common tips and tricks for Shadowpriests, and how to be best friends with your healers.

Well, yes. It’s that time again. Achievements and goodies for those who can invest the time. As Noblegarden is close to Children’s Week this year, you probably will not have the full week to do all you can, so here are a few quick tips to get you started:

Eggs are the key

Everything revolves around finding eggs in the various starting locations. Azure Watch, Goldshire, Kharanos and Dolanaar. Around these small towns eggs spawn which you can click to gather them, and then open for candy and sometimes a goody, such as a dress, tuxedo parts, flowers, and so on.

There’s also a daily quest to find 20 shell fragments in eggs you harvest, as well as one to bring 10 chocolates to the quest giver. The reward for the daily to find shell fragments is an item which you can use to turn others into bunnies. This is handy for the achievement Hard Boiled (lay an egg in Un’goro) – find a friend, turn each other into bunnies in Un’Goro and wait for an egg. Voila!

If you need it, it can be bought

Inside the eggs are chocolates. For the achievement “Chocoholic” you will need to eat 100 pieces of chocolate. They are also used to buy all of the rewards, including the bunny pet, tuxedo, dress, and so on. Helps if you aren’t lucky enough to find them inside the Noblegarden eggs. There is an achievement to find them inside the eggs, but they are not part of the meta-achievement “Noblegarden”. The vendor is the one that gives the quest asking you to collect 10 pieces of chocolate.

A special note on the achievement that asks you to “hide an egg in stormwind”. These can also be bought from the vendor, and can be used in Stormwind. I am not sure if different races have different city requirements, but you get the idea.

Good hunting, good camping

Some people prefer to hunt eggs by running like crazy hoping to find a spawn. Others wait in the same corner and camp a spawn spot. Either works, but it shouldn’t be too busy or you will likely still not get any eggs. A good tip is of course to try at early and late hours, during raiding times, or when Wintergrasp is active. This way you are less likely to find people egg-hunting.

In the end, you will need about 500 eggs to get everything done (560 I believe). So be patient, and keep faith.